Gods of Eygpt
When you look at Hollywood, films set in Egypt follow two different formats. You have Egyptian film about religion like Exodus and Gods or the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then you have the The Mummy series or the Scorpion King series which is Hollywood blockbusters.
Then..... you have Gods of Egypt. It has the Egyptian elements with gods, slaves, and empires. It feels though it popped out of your TV from 1985. An oddball of sorts that's quite interesting. A Egyptian film following it's own order.
Evil god Set (Gerald Butler) has taken over the Egyptian empire and has some evil plans along the way. The only way for him to be stopped is by moral Bek (Brenton Thwaites) who's also trying to save his lover Zaya (Courtney Eaton) and God Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).
It starts off strange by how Bent seems such a homage character to the Disney Aladdin character and he's given no backstory. Bent seems like some 16-year-old who's way over his head and seems like he shouldn't be on this joinery. Again, who then is Zaya? She seems like just another teenager. You can question the characters but the love between them is nice and it helps the chemistry is between actors Brenton Thwaites and Courtney Eaton. I think acting is fine between main leads Nikolaj-Coster-Waldau and Gerard Butler but really it makes no sense to have European actors in Egyptian roles. No sense was in casting the leads.
Once we get to the plot, it's almost like a puzzle piece. This cast has to go to other gods to collect things and solve riddles. You meet Ra, who's the sun god played by star Geoffery Rush. Even rising star Chaz Bowman has this really strange role playing god Thorth living in a place that looks like Yoda house and the only job to him is solving riddles. For such an odd film with this original plot, you sure do get a great cast.
As much as anything, Gods of Eypgt is mostly effects, greenscreens and Micheal Bay style directing ironically. When these effects get bad, they get bad but when they are good, they can be really good. It enters Michael Bay territory by how pacing is horrible and it basically just throwing action at us nonstop even though I think the action is positive. In the middle of these action scenes, the gods are able to change to creatures and they make these nice look creatures that can be compared to Autobots and Decepticons from the Transformers series but these creatures are not at all explained. If you're going to put efforts into good creatures effects, is it really that hard to add a backstory?
I will be even more famous for how I drove in a snowstorm to catch a screening of this. The first film of 2016 that's odd and I like because of it that. It's basically a Indiana Jones, Romeo and Juliet and 80's plot mashup. As much as Fifth Wave, I still alone in one of the few liking Gods of Egypt.
